US International Trade Commission provides overview of US remanufactured goods industries and markets and what affected them during 2009 to 2011.
The report, titled ‘Remanufactured Goods: An Overview of the U.S. and Global Industries, Markets, and Trade’, looks at the development of remanufacturing across a number of sectors in the US over three years and examines key influential factors affecting the industry, with the findings stating that the value of US remanufactured production grew by 15 percent to at least $43 billion (€32 billion), supporting 180,000 full-time jobs.
The report also notes that while the US and Europe account for the majority of remanufacturing activities, other countries are beginning to develop their own remanufacturing industries, although trade of remanufactured goods in many foreign markets is limited due to regulatory barriers, import bans and a lack of a common definition of what counts as remanufactured goods.
In terms of remanufacturing in the IT sector, the report found that remanufactured products account for just 0.5 percent of total IT product sales in the country, although the US market for remanufactured products was estimated to have grown by “17 percent from $4.4 billion (€3.3 billion) in 2009 to $5.2 billion (€3.9 billion) in 2011”, with the majority of remanufacturers focusing on the domestic market rather than exporting their products.
According to the report, the IT remanufacturing industry in the US consists of thousands of firms, mostly SMBs, with fewer than 500 businesses employing more than 20 members of staff. 2,000 of these firms are in the printer cartridge remanufacturing sector. In terms of job creation, employment in the IT remanufacturing industry in the US has “increased by 34 percent from around 11,500 in 2009 to 15,500 in 2011”, although this figure has been argued by industry representatives to be even higher.
Analysing the behaviour of remanufacturing firms, the report suggests that “it is more common for firms to sell both remanufactured goods and new goods than it is for firms to produce both of them”, with “less than 40 percent” producing both, but “almost 90 percent” choosing to sell both remanufactured and new goods.
A further insight provided by the report is that it is common for remanufactured IT products to be produced “in close proximity to the markets they serve”, helping to “reduce transportation costs of sourcing cores and shipping finished products” and giving companies the “advantage of speed to market”. Remanufactured products also tend to be exported regionally, in contrast to new products which “are more global in scope”.
While US investment in IT remanufacturing is estimated to have increased by 18 percent, from $14.9 million (€11.1 million) to $17.5 million (€13.1 million), the annual production of remanufactured products “is estimated to have remained essentially unchanged at $2.6 to $2.7 billion (€1.9 to €2 billion), with production capacity also remaining unchanged “for 44 percent of IT remanufacturers”. The report attributes the low levels of US investment to “the narrowing price difference between new and remanufactured IT products, depressing demand and undermining incentives to invest in additional production capacity”.